By Anne Millbrooke, Bozeman
“In the last few years, it has become increasingly clear that soon some president and some Congress must face the inevitable task of deciding whether or not the objective of a quality environment for all Americans is a top-priority national goal which takes precedence over a number of other, often competing, objectives in natural resource management and the use of the environment.”
So said Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson in 1968 when explaining the rationale for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Congress and President Richard Nixon made NEPA the law. NEPA requires the federal government to consider the environmental impact of federal projects. Bravo!
National forests protect our watersheds and thereby our clean water. National forests store carbon and thereby help clean our air. National forests provide habitat for wildlife—flora as well as fauna.
Given the success of NEPA in practice for fifty years, there is no public interest in almost reducing the protection of our federal forests.
The Trump Administration’s proposed NEPA Rule for the Forest Service would would reduce both environmental study and public review of forest management, all to provide taxpayer subsidies to logging, gas-oil-or-mineral extraction, and other developments.
Protect NEPA and our national forests! Reject the rule change.